Paddy Pimblett made a serious misstep in the MMA fandom when he launched a nuclear assault on MMA’s leading journalist, Ariel Helwani.
Pimblett’s social media was hounded by tons of disgruntled fans and Pimblett was responding to comments off and on and even deleting them for the better part of last two days despite being just days away from his UFC 282 appearance.
The public perception of the interview is rather scathing – with the video receiving equal number of likes and dislikes since the airing.
UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling his thoughts on Paddy Pimblett’s recent conversation with UFC president Dana White.
In a recent video released to Sterling’s YouTube account, he responded to Paddy Pimblett’s interview with the UFC President. The bantamweight champion said that by criticizing Ariel Helwani, Paddy was attempting to “brown-nose” White.
“The whole situation I think is definitely some brown-nosing for sure. I don’t knock Paddy for trying to get some extra brownie points. But damn dude like get some oxygen a little bit. Like get your nose out that a** so that you can come up for some air. You need a little bit of air down there.”
Bantamweight contender Merab Dvalishvili was on hand in the video – he too was surprised by Pimblett’s take:
“Yeah I listened to and this morning when I wake up I was listen I don’t listen the whole thing. But I was shocked that Paddy was talking like this about Ariel Helwani and Dana when Dana said ‘oh, yeah, yeah. ‘ And then and then after Ariel Helwani was showing, they like all texts. And I like Ariel Helwani and how in the end he’s doing his job.”
Sterling has felt he had the freedom to express his opinion since he’s not really in UFC’s good graces. While things seem amicable to casual fans, UFC was not enthused when Sterling opted for a DQ win in the first clash against Petr Yan. Winning a Championship by a DQ is more or less unprecedented and what followed was a serious of subtle disses of Sterling’s abilities.
Despite being a bantamweight champion, Sterling ranks at number 9 on the pound for pound rankings.
“He uses fighters for clicks, uses fighters to make money, and then has the audacity to talk about the UFC and yourself, saying that they don’t pay the fighters enough. Get your dough out, Ariel.” – is what Pimblett told Dana White of all people.
While Helwani is a professional journalist he has long been considered a huge fan of the sport and is generally a very good interviewer that isn’t really ‘clout chasing’.
Meanwhile Dana White is out there living in a lavish mansion and serving as the public face of the organization, lashing out when anyone asks why the athletes are compensated with only 17-19% of what an event brings in.